The mechanical gear apparatus of the instant invention provides for a power transmission wherein a gear that is driven, for example, the gear on a fishing line retrieving mechanism, on a fishing reel, moves only in a forward direction when the driving gear is driven forward or in reverse.
Gear mechanisms are used in many products for obtaining rotational activity with the product. For example, fishing reels, tape recorders, lawn sprinkler heads, power transmissions, for example, automobile transmissions, pump assemblies, for example, pumps used for chemical blending and mixing, and the like.
Many of the devices in use today have reversing mechanisms in them that allows for the reversal of the main driven gear, that is the power output gear.
Some of these mechanisms can be found, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,107,056, issued Oct. 15, 1963 to Hunter in which a sprinkler head for lawn watering is disclosed. This device provides a sprinkler which incorporates a novel turbine-actuated gear drive and a novel reversing means plus a means for adjusting the arc of operation of the sprinkler.
Water pressure is sufficient to overcome the weight of a nozzle block nozzles, and a cover plate so that a sprinkler tube moves readily to an upper position. Rotation of a turbine drives a shaft through a gear train. The gear train is arranged to effect speed reduction so that the shaft turns at a relatively low speed. By reason of the use of overcenter springs and stops, either one or the other of the terminal gears in the apparatus are placed in engagement with the teeth of an internal gear so as to drive the nozzles arcuately in one direction or the other until either a non-adjusting grip lug or an adjustable trip lug engages a trip arm to force the spring past the center, so that the other terminal gear is brought into operation and reverses the direction of rotation of the internal gear and consequently the direction of rotation of the nozzles.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,910, issued on Jul. 6, 1982 to Santoro, there is disclosed a device containing a moving support for tape tensioning for a tape recorder. Such device comprises a train of intermeshed gears supported by an elastically biased moving support which cooperates with a support from the magnetic head and a pinchroller support so as to move from a retracted inoperative position to an advanced operative position, wherein two outer gears of a train of gears are meshed with one of the reel driving toothed members in order to rotate the outer gears of the train in opposite directions to effect a tension in the associated tape being transported between the supply and take-up reels.
Another tape recorder mechanism is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,184, that issued on Feb. 2, 1988 to Takai, et al, in which a gear driving mechanism for driving a power cam for a tape recorder, in which a power cam that drives working elements by its normal rotation is driven by a motor, and the rotation direction of the motor is reversed for the purpose of loading, ejection, and the like. There is used a pivoting gear, pivoting depending on the rotation direction of the motor which is disposed at the motor side, and a normal gear and a reverse rotation gear engaging with each other which are disposed at the gear side. The pivoting gear at the motor side is engaged with one of the normal and the reverse rotation gears when the motor rotates in the normal direction, and with the other when it is pivoted by the reversal of the rotation of the motor. In this case, it is the pivoting gear that is moved, not the entire gear assembly as in the instant invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,924,573, that issued on May 15, 1990 to Huddleston deals with a pruner with a power driven extension wherein all of the gears are stationary and do not have a reversing motion except when the entire gear train is reversed.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,181,996 that issued on Feb. 27, 2007 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,463, that issue on Oct. 22, 1991 both deal with similar devices. U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,463 deals with a device that is a ratchet wrench having a handle through which a rotatable shaft extends. A bevel gear is coupled to one end of the rotatable shaft for rotating the shaft about an input drive axis. A pair of concentrically aligned ring gears are coupled to the bevel gear for counter rotation of the ring gears by the bevel gear about an output drive axis perpendicular to the input drive axis, while the '996 patent deals with a ratchet wrench that includes a handle having an internal gear formed in a head. It has two annular members rotatably received in the head and each has an internal gear, a stem rotatably engaged in the handle and a pinion for engaging with and for rotating the annular members relative to the head. In addition, a shank is rotatably engaged in the head and includes four spring biased pawls each having one or more teeth for engaging with and for controlling the driving direction of the shank by the head or the annular member and the stem.
Thus, it can be observed that none of the prior art discloses or makes obvious the instant invention.